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Today was the fan kickoff of the event held in downtown Colorado Springs. We wandered down to the event to see what it was all about. After getting parked and paying for our spot, we walked down to meet up with Alicia and Brandon as well as Ava by the parking garage across from the City Hall building. Met up with them and helped them to get Ava all setup in her carriage ride, and we were off to see the sights. The event is called “Fanfest”.
There were vendors there with food, and souvenir items as well as a lot of the drivers and their machines with the drivers offering to sign autographs. They also had a group of motorcycle riders there that were doing trick riding and jumps, putting on quite the show. We had a beer, did some wandering and then headed back to the vehicles, calling it a night. Saturday, June 25th 2022: We headed over to Brandon and Alicia’s place at 1pm to get things loaded up and ready to go. Pat and Dakota hadn’t arrived yet by the time Brandon and I finished loading our equipment, so we ran over to King Sooper to grab groceries for the outing. Getting back to B&A’s place, we loaded the cold groceries in the cooler for the trip. Brandon cracked eggs into a mason jar for the trip, which is a really useful trick, as a person does not have to worry about eggs being broken or cartons getting soaked in an ice chest. He also did the same thing with the bacon, cutting the slices in half and pitting them in a mason jar as well. Shortly after completing this, Dakota arrived on scene, and we were able to get his stuff loaded into the machine. Followed this up with loading Pat’s stuff after he arrived.
We took off for the mountain shortly after 5pm, for the spectator staging area at the North Pole Adventure parking lot. Arriving at around 6pm, we were parked in line and guess what it decided to rain. After about an hour or so the rain stopped, and we were able to get out and setup for cooking dinner, spaghetti, which Brandon did an excellent job on. Turns out that Dakota has an appetite that never seems to get full, so there were no leftovers from dinner. After eating, we cleaned up, repacked and made sure beds were ready and turned in around 10pm.
At 2am, they let everyone know that it was 15 minutes to go time for the spectator scramble up the mountain to the viewing areas. So, a rapid trip up the mountain found us at our chosen spot, “Glen Cove” at around 3am. Upon our arrival, we hustled the easy up over to where we wanted to watch the race from and stake our claim to the spot. Once done with that, we bedded back down till race time.
Race time started at 7:30am, making for an early start after a short night of sleep. Dakota and Pat went and bought coffee, and Brandon stirred out of his bed just short of 7:30am. Brandon laid out his bedroll on the ground next to the vehicle instead of sleeping inside. It was quite amusing to watch the reaction of people as they walked by and saw Brandon sleeping on the ground there. Once we were all up and moving we packed our chairs and cooking equip, ice chest, table, and blankets over to the easy up. At over 11,000 feet in elevation, this fat old guy was doing a bit of gasping trying to find that ever elusive oxygen.
We got ourselves setup and settled into watching, grabbing pictures and videos as the different racers came by. For those who have never attended, this is a timed event where you are racing the clock one driver at a time. So the drivers are sent across the starting line in a running start and somewhere around ½ way through the course the next driver is started. The course is just over 12 miles long with 159 curves and a rise in elevation from around 9600ft to 14,114ft. A tough run in good weather. When the weather is as bad as today, not easy by any stretch of the imagination. With fog and rain at the starting line, fog throughout most of the course and snow at the higher elevations, the drivers had their work cut out for them. The winning time for the event was 10 min 9 secs. Seemed pretty good to me considering the conditions that they were driving in. One driver went off the side of the road and rolled 3x’s landing on his wheels, drove back onto the course and finished his run. A young lady with the last name of Unser ran her 1st race here on the mountain this year and turned in a very respectable time, making her more well known racing family members proud. Bet we get to see and hear a lot more from her in the future as she pursues her racing career.
We endured the cold temps and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. At the completion of the race the drivers and their cars come down the mountain together in “The Parade Of Champions” allowing for better pics as well as getting to high five with the drivers. A definite must-do or bucket list item for anyone interested in auto racing. Be sure to check out our post and video on the Penrose Heritage Museum also, as it ties in with the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb.
For more details about our adventures click on the links at the top of the page.
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